


Locked Down

by Legendaerie



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Masturbation, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, intimacy issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 07:23:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13095237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/pseuds/Legendaerie
Summary: Healing isn't linear. But damn, if he didn't wish he could justmove.





	Locked Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hopelessbookgeek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopelessbookgeek/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Throw Away the Key](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6826939) by [Legendaerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/pseuds/Legendaerie). 



> I swear, I SWEAR i wasnt aiming for this to be so sad. Takes place sometime shortly after [TATK Chapter 21](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6826939/chapters/28127844).

The things that he wants and the things that he can’t do are piling up on York’s shoulders to the point that, when he gets home from a long day at Invention, he skips the pizza Wash and Tucker left on the table to slink into his bedroom and shut the door.  Outside, the movie that they’re watching rolls on, punctuated by a question from Tucker. No one knocks. He hits the mattress hard enough to bounce and wants to sink in it and never get up again.

Carolina. On top of everything, Carolina, beautiful and capable and impossibly his. And he loves her with a certainty that feels like a weight around his neck rather than an anchor in a welcome port because he’s not _enough_. Not now. Not yet. But, god, he wants to be.

Reaching up, blind, to grab a pillow and bury his face in it, smother his heating cheeks because he can’t block out the vision of how she looked at him there on the couch. Affectionate warmth heated to burn, wanting him, wanting to touch and feel him and be touched in return and god, god does he ever want her and yet, and yet, and yet.

York hisses into the pillow then flips onto his back with a gasp of air; panic makes him clutch it to his chest, put dents in the deflated pillow with his fingernails. And yet the memory of that night haunts him, tears him up inside and he’s not sure if he could shake it. If they could move fast enough to outrun it.

Breathe. Five on the inhale, five to hold, five to let it out. It’s December 18th. That night is long gone, and she would never. He loves her. He trusts her. She’s not the issue.

Hands on his face to muffle the hitch in his breath, York blinks, feeling a couple tears drip down his face. One lands in his ear and he shakes his head, wipes it out. He wants a drink. He wants to heal. He wants, he wants, he wants, and yet he lays in bed and feels sorry for himself, his girlfriend’s number in the phone in his pocket and a kitchen full of booze ten steps away.

York slides his tear-wet hand down his pants, dragging his damp fingertips down his stomach. He wants. Maybe he needs. But he can’t have Carolina here yet, straddling him with her strong thighs, ponytail draped over one shoulder and the ends of her bangs just brushing the side of his neck. Even if he needs.

Outside, the movie plays on as York constructs his own; pictures Carolina wearing nothing but a black bra and panties, her skin gone candlelight gold in the streetlights outside, her hair like fire. She’d lean over him and kiss him like this, even as she undoes his pants and pushes his shirt up to his ribcage, and she’d tell him--

\-- _too pretty for your own good, you really thought I could keep my hands off you?_

No, no, no. Pause. Rewind. She wouldn’t say anything. Just his name. The one he likes, not the one he was given. Sear it into his skin with her mouth as she brands him with love bites. Strokes his cock just the way he likes it, slow and tighter on the downstroke.

He’s getting hard again, just thinking about it. The idea of her, not the reality. York speeds up his strokes, closing his eyes and pressing his head into the sheets as he tries to lose himself in the daydream. Her hand, not his, leaving him free to stroke her thighs, hips, ribs. So soft but strong, and maybe she’d like it too. Close her eyes and sigh like his touch feels like coming home.

She wants him. She said so, anticipation smoldering in her eyes. But she's trying to be patient with him. Part of him wishes she wouldn't be, so Carolina is impatient here, panties pushed to the side as she takes him inside her. All at once, as easy as breathing.

York fumbles for the little bottle of lotion he keeps in the mess under her bed, slicks his hand with it and plunges back into the fantasy. She’d be softer than this, he thinks, no callouses to catch the head of his cock. Tight. So slick and--

\-- _so damn tight, gonna tear you open and you’re gonna feel me for weeks after this--_

Stop. Breathe. It's December 18th, and there's nothing at his back but the quilt his bubbe made for him when he graduated high school, patchworked with all the shirts he outgrew. York swallows back a curse, feeling his blood cool. It's a minefield to build a fantasy, to do anything other than take the edge off.

He discards the idea, eyes squeezed tight as he works his hand over himself just to get it over with. Thinks about Carolina in lingerie again and tries not to let a tear escape because he can't give himself to her, not when it's still torn to shreds. He wants, he needs, but he’s struggling--

On the bed beside him, his phone buzzes with a text.

// _Hope you got home safe. Love you. //_

“Carolina--”

God, he wishes she was here. Even if he couldn't feel her like he wanted, like she needed. Just seeing her, being around her, the little smiles that are so easy to miss if you don't know what to look for.

_Love you._

York takes a deep breath and strokes himself again. Slow, careful, gentle.

_I love you._

Wants and needs, possible and impossible. He envisions her anyway, like how she’d looked in the morning after his car accident, soft in the lavender light of morning. If she’d lingered in bed beside him, kissed him, pulled off her shirt and mounted him like that in her own room. The quiet chirps of her sleepy birds, the catch in her breath as she eases him inside her, a little self-satisfied smile.

_I love you, I love you, I love you._

York comes in silence, choking back her name as he seizes on the sheets, only catching some of his cum in his hand as his toes curl in his shoes. His body jerks, muscles snapping taut, and he sobs for breath as softly as possible as he strokes himself through his orgasm.

Progress, perhaps, meandering and painful. But he got through it this time. He survived. Maybe he can't outrun the memory of that unwanted, unneeded touch but he can outpace it. Keep going, even if the steps are small.

York wipes off his hands and tosses aside his soiled shirt, sending off one last text.

\\\ _love you too_ \\\

On his back because he can't sleep on his stomach after this, he lets his eyes close and prays that, one day, he could replace his nightmares with his daydreams. That when he sleeps, his mind is filled with nothing.

It isn't.

 


End file.
